The ISU created anonymous judging to purposely assist cheating

Brian Orser gave an interview recently and this was one of his quotes:

The big improvement I feel that is needed is in the transparency in judging. I realize the idea is to "protect" the judges so they can do what they feel without any external pressure, however, I think it has backfired.

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Obviously that sentiment is shared by a lot of people in the figure skating world, but I think it's time for everyone to acknowledge the elephant in the room -- the ISU lied when it said judging anonymity was needed in order to protect judges and keep them from being pressured to cheat; instead, the ISU knew all along that judging anonymity would make it impossible to hold judges accountable and therefore only serve to facilitate cheating. Anonymous judging was created with clear intent to continue and encourage rife cheating and the buying and selling of votes throughout the sport.

What other explanation can there be for an organization that:

1) refuses to change the system even after its ineffectiveness has been discovered

2) allows convicted cheating officials to return to the sport after 1 year
(can you imagine a professional sports referee being found to rig matches and then be reinstated 1 year later?)

3) the ISU president refuses to acknowledge that cheating is even a severe violation
(he referred to fixing matches as "a minor violation")

It is clear that with the ISU in charge the sport of figure skating will decline until the ISU can no longer afford to hold competitions without IOC subsidies. Perhaps that point has been reached already.

It's time for everyone to acknowledge that figure skating currently exists with an unworkable model. The governing body is not interested in fair competitions or fair and honest business practices and regulations between its member federations. The governing body itself has been exposed as a criminal organization within the sport of figure skating.

If the cheating judges you're talking about are Korytek (the toe-tapper) and Balkov (the phone caller with the predetermined results), both were identified and "punished" before the IJS came into place. I agree that neither of them should ever be allowed to judge any ISU event again, but that's a separate issue from whether the IJS was purposely created to hide crooked judging. It may have had that effect in practice, as Orser suggests, but I think it's pretty ludicrous to suggest that it was created explicitly for that purpose.

Even if anonymity wasn't put in place explicitly to allow cheating, in retrospect, it was clearly meant to, at the very least, make sure no one would ever be caught again. Thereby, saving the ISU from another 2002-level scandal.

both were identified and "punished" before the IJS came into place. I agree that neither of them should ever be allowed to judge any ISU event again, but that's a separate issue from whether the IJS was purposely created to hide crooked judging.

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Cinquanta and his cronies at ISU and some of the same recycled players at the major federations were still around then same as they are now. The fact that someone could be caught rigging matches and only receive a 1-year suspension demonstrates that the people in charge do not consider cheating a serious infraction. Cinquanta verified this in 2014 when he told Phil Hersh that cheating is "only" a "minor" violation. Instead it seems the 1 year penalty was more for indiscretion and getting caught.

Which brings us back to why anonymous judging was instituted. It was not instituted to relieve pressure from judges. It was instituted to make sure that when cheating happened again it would never be discovered.

In short, the ISU is not interested in fair competition or business practices.

I think you should review what happened between the Salt Lake City committee and the IOC. If you think corruption and fraud are beyond the scope of the ISU, you are mistaken.

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I have never said anything that even vaguely indicates I think anything like this. This comment has as little to do with reality as the rest of your "analysis".

You might disagree, which is an opinion you are entitled to (but should re-examine); however, to suggest the topic of this thread is "ludicrous" more than misses the mark.

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I don't disagree that there is crooked judging in the ISU, or that the ISU hasn't done enough to deal with it in any meaningful way. What I do disagree with is your tinfoil-hat idea that the IJS was specifically created to cover up crooked judging. That is what is ludicrous.

What I do disagree with is your tinfoil-hat idea that the IJS was specifically created to cover up crooked judging. That is what is ludicrous.

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No, what is ludicrous is that the people running the sport think it's no big deal when officials conspire to fix matches. Try and find one other sport in the world where convicted match-fixing referees are brought back and allowed to officiate again because their violation was only "minor". And since you probably can't find a popular sport that does it, you'll see the reason why everyone thinks "lol figure skating always rigged" and they don't watch anymore.

The ISU and its federations have time and again demonstrated a disregard for the sanctity of fair competition. The president of the ISU essentially lied to a major figure skating journalist's face earlier this year when he was asked about conflicts of interest among officials. The same president has violated the ISU's constitution in order to remain in power longer than allowed. But when a system was implemented that has clearly made cheating far worse, you would give these people the benefit of the doubt that they made an honest mistake and their good intentions backfired? If anything is "ludicrous", it is your naivety.

But when a system was implemented that has clearly made cheating far worse, you would give these people the benefit of the doubt that they made an honest mistake and their good intentions backfired? If anything is "ludicrous", it is your naivety.

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If you think cheating is far worse now, you weren't around in the 1970s and 1980s when figures were being judged.

And as for your interpretation of my post as saying that the ISU made a honest mistake and had good intentions - I didn't think you could get farther off the mark than your previous misreadings, but congratulations, you succeeded. Let me know if you want to discuss anything that I actually said.

Even if anonymity wasn't put in place explicitly to allow cheating, in retrospect, it was clearly meant to, at the very least, make sure no one would ever be caught again. Thereby, saving the ISU from another 2002-level scandal.

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I agree.

Especially after all of the wonderful gems of convolutedness we got from Speedy this season, it's clear that ISU wants to brush any controversy under the rug as quickly as possible. The ISU level of response is equal to the level of media outrage. This Olympics we had a lot of uninformed journalists & commentators saying things that backed up the ISU*, to minimize the opposing outrage, so the ISU stayed their course. This is how we got Speedy gems such as "It's better to have a good judge than a conflict of interest" and nobody does anything.

*Such as "How Sotnikova Beat Kim: Move by Move" with incorrect angles and photos; "Deal with it, South Korea" with a lack of understanding in the scoring system; Tara Lipinski emotionally supporting the winner most like her (the youngest) but no other rational reason; and Scott Hamilton desperately trying not to rock the boat with his comments. If you think that journalists and commentators have nothing to do with ISU response, please refer to 2002 and where we would be had Scott Hamilton not said anything about the pairs event.

If you think cheating is far worse now, you weren't around in the 1970s and 1980s when figures were being judged.

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But this isn't the 70s or 80s, it's the 2010s and IJS was supposed to make suspicious judging a thing of the past. Is it really a good thing that we can say "Well the cheating still going on today is no worse than the 70s & 80s." That's a dubious distinction. Where's the progress?

the ISU lied when it said judging anonymity was needed in order to protect judges and keep them from being pressured to cheat; instead, the ISU knew all along that judging anonymity would make it impossible to hold judges accountable and therefore only serve to facilitate cheating.

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I think this overstates it a bit. I think the anonymity does serve to protect a judge from retribution by his/her federation, but only if the judge wants to be honest to begin with and does not share the sympathies of the federation. Unfortunately, most of the top international judges do share the sympathies and goals of their federations (and hug their own skaters for doing well).

Still, while the judging is anonymous to us, the ISU does know who gave what marks and does review marks themselves, so the judges are still accountable to the ISU. There have been actions taken against judges since adoption of ISU for marks too far out of line, though we don't know if that was from cheating or incompetence, or even if maybe that judge actually had it right and the others were the problem. As far as I've ever heard, they have never investigated the possibility of block judging or collusion under this system, only individual judges.

I agree totally that the ISU's real objective with anonymity was to prevent the media from creating another SLC scandal. It would require some seriously rose-colored glasses not to see that pretty clearly. I am, frankly, surprised there is anyone around here who has dunk enough ISU koolaid to believe otherwise.

Still, while the judging is anonymous to us, the ISU does know who gave what marks and does review marks themselves, so the judges are still accountable to the ISU. There have been actions taken against judges since adoption of ISU for marks too far out of line, though we don't know if that was from cheating or incompetence, or even if maybe that judge actually had it right and the others were the problem. As far as I've ever heard, they have never investigated the possibility of block judging or collusion under this system, only individual judges.

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Suppose the ISU has never investigated block judging or any other kind of collusion because it doesn't care. Suppose they are perfectly fine with collusion. Suppose the ISU carried out the orders of the IOC. Suppose they stacked 2/3 of the technical panel with Russians. Suppose they dictated to the judges what would be in their best interest.

I agree totally that the ISU's real objective with anonymity was to prevent the media from creating another SLC scandal. It would require some seriously rose-colored glasses not to see that pretty clearly. I am, frankly, surprised there is anyone around here who has dunk enough ISU koolaid to believe otherwise.

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Now I think we are getting to the heart of the problem. The opaqueness of the scoring system (and quite frankly, the correlated lack of adherence to it), combined with anonymous judging, has driven the sport into the dark abyss. The ISU has been confronted with a dilemma, two opposing choices:

1. Fix the crappy scoring system again, and do away with anonymous judging, in order for interest in the sport to return.

2. Bury heads in the sand, lie that everything is ok, but then quietly suggest cutting competitions in half because the sport is going bankrupt.

The ISU chooses #2 because #1 would mean actual reform. The ISU is not interested in reform. There is a reason that figure skating is notorious for being the most corrupt sport of them all. The people actually running the sport are so invested in crookedness that they would drive everything into bankruptcy in order to preserve their kleptocracy.

IJS works better because at least the scores are broken down into details and now skaters know they can win if they had only done an extra 2toe or a higher level spin. The PCS also carries criteria. This to me is much more meaningful than 5.6/5.8.

What hasn't changed though, is judges not judging according to the criteria (intentionally or not) and giving out bogus GOEs and PCS. What's worse is that they don't have to be accountable. For example, I think the judging of the Russian singles competitors at Sochi Olympics was absolutely bogus but I am not aware of any inquiry into the judges and justifications for their scores.

IJS works better because at least the scores are broken down into details and now skaters know they can win if they had only done an extra 2toe or a higher level spin. The PCS also carries criteria. This to me is much more meaningful than 5.6/5.8.

What hasn't changed though, is judges not judging according to the criteria (intentionally or not) and giving out bogus GOEs and PCS. What's worse is that they don't have to be accountable. For example, I think the judging of the Russian singles competitors at Sochi Olympics was absolutely bogus but I am not aware of any inquiry into the judges and justifications for their scores.

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The technical panel doesn't score accurately either. IJS is really just a convoluted and phony way of still adhering to ordinals, which is another way for just picking skaters based on politics.

Anonymous judging and ordinal vs. score-based judging are two different issues that were introduced at approximately the same time. (Anonymous judging actually came first, in 2003 and 2004, before the IJS was ready)

There can be
1) Ordinals with judges identified
2) Ordinals with judges anonymous
3) IJS with judges identified
4) IJS with judges anonymous

For those who object to 4), how would you feel about 3)?

It is true that it is harder to report the scores with judges identified while the competition is in progress (i.e., in the Kiss and Cry) under IJS because there are so many more numbers involved. So even without anonymity fans won't get the fun of booing specific judges while the competition is in progress. But for those who care about tracking judging patterns including national bias, knowing which judge gave which column of scores on the protocols can provide better data for analysis.

Someday there will probably be a completely different way of judging skating. I predict that at some point later in this century things like speed, jump height and rotation, maybe details of edges, etc., will be scored by sensors and computers, not by the human eye, leaving only the qualitative/subjective aspects up to human evaluation.

But it's the subjective aspects that tend to attract fans. So I think there will always be human judgement involved. And room for disagreement. And probably room for cheating, regardless of the system.

I think the judging of the Russian singles competitors at Sochi Olympics was absolutely bogus but I am not aware of any inquiry into the judges and justifications for their scores.

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Both of S. Korea's inquiries were rejected for dubious reasons and circular logic by the ISU. Did we expect anything less?

1) S. Korea made a fair case for biased judging from Alla S. - which was rejected because "Adelina initiated the hug" - as if it doesn't matter if they know each other well enough to be hugging. Somehow the ISU determined, without stating how they know, that Alla was “neither biased nor partial to the Russian skater Sotnikova.”

2) "Further, the complaint was deemed inadmissible because the ISU said it was not directed at an individual or a federation." - So they did not reject the complaint's charge of questionable ethics, but merely rejected it on a technicality of how S. Korea filed their paperwork.

3) The inquiry was extra-double-infinity rejected by the ISU because it was filed two months later instead of within 30 minutes (why it took the ISU this long to inform us that the 30 minutes had long ago passed is puzzling.)

The ISU tellingly did not admit that the scoring was possibly wrong, only that "too much time had passed" to worry about it. Makes you feel better, doesn't it?

I never feel it's the system that's the issue. It's what they do with it that makes the judging bad.

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I fully agree with this.
I'm surprised at how much some people talk about the "right or "wrong system". There isn't a perfect system. People (humans) are going that tool called system, and it all depends on how you use it.
I mean, even in football (soccer for some) which is a very simply game, and if you score you win, there is corruption and poor referees. Let alone a sport like FS, where also the subjectivity part is involved.

@All: About this Adelina's hug thing that you keep repeating, are you really serious about it or is it just hypocrisy?

@All: About this Adelina's hug thing that you keep repeating, are you really serious about it or is it just hypocrisy?

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Sadly, they are really serious. They think it is some huge indicator of an enormous evil KONSPIRACY!!!!

But of course, it's perfectly okay for a Japanese judge to hug Yuzuru, for a Korean judge who is the vice president of the KSU to be on the Vancouver panel, for a Korean judge to sit in the kiss-n-cry with another Korean skater...

Sadly, they are really serious. They think it is some huge indicator of an enormous evil KONSPIRACY!!!!

But of course, it's perfectly okay for a Japanese judge to hug Yuzuru, for a Korean judge who is the vice president of the KSU to be on the Vancouver panel, for a Korean judge to sit in the kiss-n-cry with another Korean skater...

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is this sh!t a joke? she's not judging anymore.. you need to do some research..

is this sh!t a joke? she's not judging anymore.. you need to do some research..

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Whether she is judging or not, it's not relevant, at all.
Was it ok with you people when the president of the KSU (not the wife or the husband but the fecking President in person) was among the judging panel in Vancouver?
Was it ok that the Vice President of Skate Canada was also a member of the judging panel?
Is it ok that the Japanese judge had a picture with Yuzuru (like a fan boy)?
Is it ok for judges who knows these skaters very well, to engage in a close friendship with them?

ALL Feds call their (own) international judges to give inputs and advice to their own skaters. and they all do lobby for their skaters at international level.

So, I don't get it. How come that Adelina hugging Alla S has even became news, let alone prove anything?!

Is this really about "love for the sport", "fairness", "credibility", and all sort of things I've heard so far, or this is ALL about Kim not winning the OGM?!
The truth is, IMO, that if Kim would've been the winner in Sochi, nobody would give a damn now about Sotnikova kissing Alla, Balkov or Cinquanta.

Whether she is judging or not, it's not relevant, at all.
Was it ok with you people when the president of the KSU (not the wife or the husband but the fecking President in person) was among the judging panel in Vancouver?
Was it ok that the Vice President of Skate Canada was also a member of the judging panel?
Is it ok that the Japanese judge had a picture with Yuzuru (like a fan boy)?
Is it ok for judges who knows these skaters very well, to engage in a close friendship with them?
ALL Feds call their (own) international judges to give inputs and advice to their own skaters. and they all do lobby for their skaters at international level.

So, I don't get it. How come that Adelina hugging Alla S has even became news, let alone prove anything?!

Is this really about "love for the sport", "fairness", "credibility", and all sort of things I've heard so far, or this is ALL about Kim not winning the OGM?!
The truth is, IMO, that if Kim would've been the winner in Sochi, nobody would give a damn now about Sotnikova kissing Alla, Balkov or Cinquanta.

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wtf? misskarne is claiming that it's wrong that a korean judge is sitting on the kiss and cry when IN FACT she's not judging anymore.. she's not judging at the event.. she's not even part of that panel.. but alla, baranova were in Sochi.. with no shame went backstage and hugged their precious russian.. it would have been an issue if yuzuru and pchan were clean.. but they weren't.. pchan didn't deliver, made some mistakes.. so it wasn't an issue about yuzuru hugging the japanese judge..

and that lone korean in vancouver didn't make any difference unlike in sochi, yes that was also a conflict in interest and should have been avoided.. but in sochi 3 skaters were tied after SP.. and then all of sudden the cheater balkov got a job in the closest race in ladies singles in the lp.. not to mention alla together with 2 important persons in the tech panel 1 who is a russian.. and the other one who is a friend of tarasova.. yeah.. it was blatant.. like they don't care.. after all no one gives a sh!t about this sport..

So, I don't get it. How come that Adelina hugging Alla S has even became news, let alone prove anything?!

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Since Adelina's scores and win were such a farce anything she does will cast further doubt. Plus Alla S is famous for decades as the worst and most dishonest judge in the history of the sport. She is satan in a coat.

BTW it isn't just about Kim. There is no argument for Adelina being any higher than 3rd in the short and 4th in the long of the Games.